


Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

by sister_coyote



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Action/Adventure, Bondage, F/M, Missionfic, Turkfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-10-29
Updated: 2006-10-29
Packaged: 2017-10-03 06:28:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sister_coyote/pseuds/sister_coyote
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elena hated being underestimated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

**Author's Note:**

> Game spoilers.

Tseng could vividly remember the first time the idea—_no, let's be honest with ourselves, the fantasy_—struck him. It was on the Calloway mission, the one that started in the ballroom of the Imperial Hotel in Junon and ended up in the disused sewers beneath the city.

She'd protested her role in that one, because she had to go undercover and find the target, while he and Reno and Rude waited for her signal from the disused balconies. "I always get stuck playing dress-up and making idiotic small talk with the rich and boring," she'd said.

"You pass best," he'd said mildly. "Reno is never at his best when he's trying to be . . . inconspicuous, and Wutaians are still noteworthy at high society functions like this." It surprised him, the surge of bitterness that threaded into his voice at that—even now.

"And Rude?" she asked, even as she accepted the cardboard box with the unspeakably expensive dress she'd need to fit in at the event.

He knew that she was perfectly well aware that very large men with shaved heads were almost as conspicuous as tattooed redheads or Wutaians, so instead he said, "We couldn't requisition an evening gown in his size sufficiently quickly to make the deadline."

She choked on a laugh.

So it had begun with Elena finding the mark on the ballroom floor as planned, but—the battle plan never surviving contact with the enemy—it had ended, one way and another, in the sewers, with Rude and Reno covering the exits and himself and Elena cornering the target in a blocked fork in the tunnels.

The man had to run past one of them to get out, and Tseng could _see_ him making the decision. The man's eyes flicking from Elena to Tseng and back to Elena. He made the superficially obvious choice—and the stupid one—and rushed Elena. In the fraction of a second before the man crashed into her, Tseng saw Elena's eyes narrow.

She hated being underestimated.

He was sort of looking forward to watching this.

It happened almost too quickly to track: the man slammed his shoulder into Elena, and she caught his arm and twisted it up and at the same time did—something, he couldn't quite catch what—with her knee, and then the man was on the ground, inches-deep in sludge, with Elena's gun trained dead on his chest.

"Wrong choice," she said. Her dress was ripped ragged up one side, and she had a long smut of grease on the side of her face and a smear of blood to the left of her nose, and her sweaty hair fell half in her face. Standing there, her gaze and her arm and the gun making one long lethal line toward the mark, she was the most beautiful thing Tseng had seen in . . . .

"You should've gone for Tseng," she said. "It wouldn't've pissed _him_ off." Then she shot him—not in the chest, but in the thigh.

They still needed him for questioning, after all.

Tseng flipped open his phone, and said, over the man's gasping howl of pain, "Reno?"

"Boss?"

"Clean-up. I want this one in a secure holding location—I don't care where. I suspect he has a shattered femur, so restraining him will probably not be difficult, but make sure no one hears him."

"Got it. We'll be there. You coming with us?"

"We'll meet you tomorrow. I don't think either of us are in a fit state for public travel."

After Rude and Reno subdued the target and dragged him off, he turned to Elena. She was laughing, her eyes crazy-bright like always after a successful mission. She tugged at her ruined dress. "Do I want to know how much of Rufus' gil I just wasted?"

He crossed the tunnel, straightening his cuffs. "I wouldn't say any of it was wasted, per se," he said mildly, and put his hands on her waist, and kissed her.

It wasn't the first time by a fair shot, but it was still new enough to be . . . new. He could taste blood in her mouth where she must have bitten the inside of her lip—which she did at tense moments, and which he hadn't known until the _first_ time he'd kissed her—and she made a little appreciative noise at the back of her throat and pushed her tongue into his mouth. Expressive, and eager, and they'd had sex just three times yet but he was already thinking _like always_ about that, which was maybe a little odd. But he liked it: he liked it about her, and he liked knowing it about her. He dragged his hands up her back, against the nap of the velvet. She wrapped her right arm around his back, and they both realized at about the same time that she still had her gun in her hand, pressing cold metal against the back of his neck. They broke apart; she gave him a purely feral grin, and pushed aside the torn slit of the dress to re-holster the gun high on her thigh.

They'd wound up in his hotel room without either of them actually talking about it, and he liked that, too—that she could follow a cue with a minimum of fuss or second-guessing. They'd stumbled for the shower because they were incredibly filthy from the waist down, not only with grime but also with blood spattered up Elena's leg, from when she'd shot the man.

She'd gone straight to work on his jacket and shirt, and it hadn't taken much to get the dress off her shoulders—it was trying to slide off on its own, and needed only a little nudging. The top slid down to reveal a black lace bra. It was the first time he'd seen her in any undergarment that wasn't primarily functional. He leaned forward to trace the upper curve of her breast with his mouth, pressing the edge of the lace down a bit. She whimpered and dug a hand into his hair, which she had got loose at some point when he was distracted.

When his thoughts started up again properly, he murmured, "Haven't seen this before," against her skin, and caught the edge of the other cup between his fingertips. His tongue dipped lower, pushing the lace down.

"Uh," she said, sounding as though she were trying to jump-start her own brain—and that was very good for his ego, and made him smile against her skin—". . . can't wear it under the uniform shirt, it shows through." His mind presented him with an image of Elena in her suit, crisp and professional but with the dark shadows of black lace just visible through the white shirt, and he stifled a moan by catching her nipple between his lips. "But . . . if you're going to wear a . . . ten-thousand-plus gil dress, you kind of need something underneath that's . . ."

She didn't finish the sentence, but he really didn't care. He circled her nipple, teasing, kissed his way back up her chest to her neck, and then paused, just looking. The black lace set off the fairness of her skin, especially here on her breasts, which were nearly white: stark contrast, just as her hands on the back of his neck—rough from her easy daily handling of guns and handcuffs and grenades and throwing knives—contrasted with the softness of her skin at the juncture of her neck and shoulder. She wound one of those callused hands through his hair. He looked up to find her staring at the strands of his hair, black as the lace of her underwear and just as sharply contrasted against the pale skin of her inner wrist. She gazed at it as he had studied the slope of her breast, and he wondered if she was thinking what he had been thinking.

He liked the idea, but the last thing he wanted right now was to talk about it, or anything else. So he kissed her again, which broke the moment, and she arched up out of the dress so that it puddled on the floor, and a few minutes later they were pulling each other under the spray of the shower.

. . . and later, in the bed, she rode him: and she was strong, and beautiful with it, her thighs against his, his mouth on hers. He caught her hips to slow her pace, but she wouldn't be denied and she undulated against him, fast fast fast—she was like this after a mission, heat and ferocity and the tension getting to them both, and he growled and kissed her neck, bared his teeth against it, felt as well as heard her vibrating cry . . . .

Some time after that, lying in the dark, he thought about black lace and fair skin, about a gun and an evening gown, about the woman asleep next to him, her hair still damp against his shoulder, who was also the woman who had stood ankle-deep in sludge and held a gun on a man as easily as if it were a part of her own body.

When he woke, she was already up, tipping a busboy for bringing her bags from her own room. He could smell the aroma of dreadful hotel coffee. She hadn't noticed him yet, so he enjoyed the unguarded moment, watching her dress. He watched the guns go into their holsters, the knives in sheathes up her sleeves, the short string of concussion grenades she wore under her jacket, across the small of her back—part of the reason she didn't like going undercover, she said, was that it was harder to sequester weapons under plainclothes than under the blue suit, which was designed to conceal, and while she _could_ kill someone with a wrench or a butter knife if she had to, she preferred more options.

She fished around in her bag for a moment more, and came up with her handcuffs, which she held out, thoughtfully, the bottom cuff swinging on its two-link length of chain. That was when the image hit him, like a bullet between the eyes: Elena, Elena in black lace that concealed everything and hid nothing, stark against her fair skin; Elena, her hands bound with her _own damn handcuffs_—stretched out for him, sultry, bound but not submissive, her eyes full of challenges, her smile sleek and feral even as her posture was vulnerable. For him to do with what he chose. _Show me what you've got._

The vision was so sharp and so stunning that he stopped breathing, staring at her. She said, "Do you think I need the handcuffs? We ice him after, right?"

He said, "Bring the handcuffs," in a voice that was only slightly strangled, for which he could thank years of practicing perfect control.

Wishful thinking. He had the distinct feeling that she'd slap him if he suggested it.

*******

She nearly smacked him when he suggested it, and the only reason she didn't was that he worked up to it very carefully, like he was expecting that reaction. Honestly, if she thought about it, she could see that he'd been working up to the suggestion for weeks. Maybe longer. He always was a one for long-term planning, Tseng.

"My handcuffs?" she asked, lifting an eyebrow.

"That's a no, then?" he replied, and did he have to be so collected all the time?

She opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again, and said, ". . . Let me think about it."

He looked surprised, which made it worth it.

She didn't think about it seriously again for quite a while—weeks. Occasionally, she picked the thought up and turned it over, and then abandoned it again. She wasn't sure quite what her reluctance was, but it was definitely _there_. Maybe it had something to do with the time Don Corneo had tied her up, along with the ninja girl. But that didn't quite ring true. Certainly the experience had put her a bit off being tied up, but mostly what she felt, remembering that, was a vague sense of distaste, and embarassment that she'd needed rescuing. She didn't feel especially traumatized.

It had more to do with not wanting to be helpless, or even to appear helpless. _Especially_ in front of Tseng. They were lovers (or something; terminology hadn't come up, and there hadn't been any professions of anything, really), but her being a Turk was bigger than that, much bigger. And Turks weren't helpless. And, at five foot nothing and fair and blonde with distressing big doe eyes, so that looking tough was pretty much a lost cause, she was already at a significant disadvantage, and didn't want to cede more ground.

But really, she didn't think about it much more until the Johannes mission. Or the Johannes disaster, because it went sour so fast. She certainly couldn't say any mission was going _well_ if she wound up in a running firefight with three heavily-armed men through the ruined streets of Midgar, with herself and Tseng pinned between the processing plant and their assailants. Overhead, the helicopter chopped the air, circling tight over them but positioned wrong to provide cover. She couldn't hear Reno, but she could hear Tseng replying to something over his headset as she ducked into a doorframe.

Shit. Bullets echoed off the metal of the dumpster that provided her with cover. She was sort-of kind-of secure right there, for now, but she couldn't get a good angle to return fire or lob a grenade, unless . . . . She put one foot on the top of the dumpster and heaved herself into the blown-out second-story window. A rain of bullets spattered the wall where she had been—but she wasn't there anymore. There was something to be said for being small, if you were quick along with it.

She could hear Tseng's voice to Reno, taut as if he were biting each word off: "— hold fire—if you hit the—"

A bullet chunked into the wall beside Tseng, sending a rattling spume of plaster down the wall. He rolled aside. She spared him a glance in between trying to get a bead on the most visible of their attackers. "You're exposed to the north-east," she hissed. He scrambled behind the dumpster.

"—if you hit the plant, it'll blow us all up, and the target with it," Tseng finished to Reno. She could hear the long mutter of Reno's fluent swearing even from where she was.

It was an attrition battle, was what it was. Neither side could get good cover, so it'd be a matter of trading bullets until someone got unlucky . . . or ran out of bullets. This was one of the situations she'd learned to deal with from Reno rather than Tseng. Because sometimes holing up and waiting for them to get you wasn't the way to go, and sometimes you had to take a risk.

"I've got a shot," she said. She could see him calculating the angle she'd be taking, saw his eyes widen fractionally, and then saw him nod. Adrenaline, spiked with something else that she'd think about later, swarmed through her. "I'm taking it." She swung out of the window, hanging from the frame by one hand, and aimed parallel to the building. The necessary angle exposed her completely, and for one long nightmarish moment she was looking straight at two of the attackers, looking down the distant barrels of their guns. But they were exposed to her, too: the report of her gun slammed the air once, twice, a third time. The fourth shot didn't come from her gun. She felt a searing pain in her ear, let go of the windowsill, and let herself fall.

She hit the ground with one shoulder, rolled, and came up with her hand on her ear. Blood. But her head was still intact—it was close, so close, but she was alive. For now. She skidded into the cover behind the dumpster.

"You got one of them," Tseng said, "I think. That leaves two."

"Two more times I gotta do that?" she said, half-laughing. It wasn't actually funny, except that with the amount of tension in her, everything was funny. It was funnier when she realized how little ammunition she had left. She reloaded with quick, definitive movements. So did Tseng.

"I'm running out of—" he began.

"So am I," she said. Their eyes met. She felt her mouth turn up at one corner.

"Fuck this noise," Reno crackled in Tseng's ear; this close, she could hear too. The helicopter swung around.

"You have a shot?" Tseng asked.

"No," Reno said. The roar of the chopper filled the alley; the wind picked up to a dizzying swirl that dragged garbage and dust into the air.

Reno landed the helicopter on the two men still standing.

Elena started to laugh. She picked herself up. "Tell Reno he's my goddamn hero," she shouted, half-deaf from the gunshots in close proximity, and the din of the helicopter.

"I heard," Reno said, his voice backlit with static. "Tell her she's just goddamn _loud_."

She laughed again, her gun still up and ready in one hand. Her ear stung. She touched it, and came away with bloody fingers—very bloody.

"You're going to leave quite a trail like that," Tseng said, calmly as always, and thumbed the materia on the butt of his gun before reaching out to brush her ear. It throbbed more for a moment, and then subsided. "Our dry-cleaning bills are high enough as it is," he added.

"You're still hung up on the time Reno knocked the pitcher of margaritas on you, aren't you?" she said. Her hair was sticky with blood, and she didn't have anything to wipe blood off her cheek with except her equally stained sleeve.

"Wouldn't you be?" Tseng raised an eyebrow, and then started toward the processing plant. Time to finish the job. ". . . At any rate, I'm still not convinced that was entirely Reno's fault."

In the distance, Rude had gotten out of the helicopter, and shot the men in the head, for insurance.

"But he makes _such_ a compelling scapegoat," she said, flashing a grin. "And someday he'll learn to stop calling me 'rookie.'"

"He only does that anymore when he's had too much to drink," Tseng said. Which was true. At some point in the past couple of years, she'd proved herself to Reno. It just didn't stop him from trying to get under her skin; but then, that was _Reno_.

"Nevertheless." It didn't mean she couldn't give as good as she got.

Tseng made an amused sound, a one-beat close-mouthed chuckle.

As she followed Tseng toward the processing plant and the information that was the mission's ultimate target, the thought _He didn't try to stop me from going out that window_ floated across her mind. It had been a move with about two-thirds likelihood of getting her killed and another one-sixth of getting her maimed, and he'd known that, she'd seen it in his eyes, and he hadn't tried to stop her.

Thank god.

He hadn't tried to protect her, he didn't think she was weak, and he'd send her off to die if it needed to be done. And—and, oh, thank _god_. She realized that she was smiling.

"What're you so thrilled about?" Reno said, falling into step with her. He looked pretty happy, too, but it wasn't very often he had an excuse to land a helicopter on someone.

"I'm just in awe of your flying skills, hotshot," she said, perfect deadpan. Reno snickered, and made a show of stretching, cocky arrogance without which he just wouldn't be himself. She was exhausted and gritty and her shoulder ached where she'd hit the asphalt and she had blood all down the side of her face and neck and shoulder. And she felt fabulous.

Tseng didn't think she was helpless. Not at all. Not even when it came down to the wire.

Which meant . . . well. Well, indeed.

Her smile got a fraction wider.

*******

Tseng got the note the next day—the cryptic voicemail from Elena that said something about T-9514 reports for the benefit of prying ears, but that actually meant 'I'll be over tonight, kindly do not mistake me for an intruder and shoot me if you find me in your apartment.' She didn't have a key, but was entirely capable of breaking in, and had done so before. (A Turk who couldn't get past any of the locks on the market was a Turk who needed more training.)

So he wasn't surprised to see a light on in his apartment, and he was only mildly surprised to see his bedroom door ajar. Usually if she showed up before him, she would be on the couch, with a book and possibly wine. Nevertheless . . . .

He took off his jacket and hung it up, slid off his shoes, and was loosening his tie when he nudged open the bedroom door with his foot.

Elena reclined on his bed, in a black lace teddy that just barely covered her nipples. Her hair fell in her eyes, and her expression was part-seductive, part-challenging, and maybe just a smidge of 'if you are so foolish as to laugh, this will never happen again.'

He wasn't even vaguely tempted to laugh. Especially when he noticed the glint of silver around her right wrist, and his eyes followed the line of it to two links of chain and then the other cuff, invitingly open on the bedspread and his higher brain functions briefly shut themselves down.

*******

Tseng stopped dead, his eyes widening a bit and, even more telling, his pupils expanding. Elena pressed the corners of her lips together to hide her smile.

"Well?" she said. "You going to join me?" Handcuffs notwithstanding, for the moment, she felt powerful.

It took him a minute to speak, but when he did, his voice was low and deep and smooth in a way that made her quiver, all the way to the pit of her stomach. "I believe I am," he said, and came over to kneel on the bed beside her, looking at her.

Before he could get a chance to restrain her hands, she worked off his shirt and slid her hands up his chest. He caught her chin in his hand and kissed her, very slow and deep, so that she almost didn't notice when he let go of her chin to hold both her wrists, and lifted them above her head, toward the headboard. Then there was a metallic rattle, and click of handcuffs closing, and the light pressure of metal on her wrist. When she tugged, they held.

He sat back on his heels and looked at her. She shivered again, all over, even though it was warm in the apartment. She met his eyes. She felt lightheaded, as though there wasn't enough air in the room. He ran a hand lightly down her body, starting just below her throat and slipping between her breasts, over her belly, lower . . . . She was suddenly both glad and a little embarrassed that the teddy was crotchless, as his fingers slid over her and she was already wet. The corner of his mouth lifted in what looked like amused satisfaction.

Tseng kissed her again, and his fingertips slid between her folds—just grazing her clit, making her arch, sliding away and just stroking. His tongue traced her lower lip and then slid into her mouth. Elena trapped it and sucked on it. She moaned as he slid his fingers into her. He drew back, nipping at her lower lip, then moved down, licking and kissing, to her breasts.

It was odd to have so little control—odd, but not entirely bad. He hesitated over her breasts, taking his time, coaxing them up from the lace cups. The tip of his tongue circled her nipple, drawing a long sigh out of her that ended on a moan. He made a soft noise, too: not quite a moan, but appreciative, and lingered until she trembled, liquid heat pooling low in her and snaking up her spine. Taking his time.

He did, eventually, pull away to remove the rest of his clothing. Tseng was gorgeous, as always: lean, muscular, panther-like quiet and deadly. Elena's gaze caught, as always, on the ridge of scar tissue across his flat stomach; she looked suddenly at his face. They were all lucky to be alive, one way or another. He moved smoothly over her, and she wanted to touch him and couldn't, and pulled at the handcuffs and made a frustrated noise. Tseng really did smile, his rare real smile, and kissed her again. Warm, warm, lips and teeth and tongue; she couldn't touch him so she kissed him back, with interest. He pulled back just a little, so she could feel his breath when he said, "Yes?"

"Yes," Elena replied, and felt the long slow spine-burn of anticipation. Tilted her hips, and he slid into her smoothly (she was so wet already—she had been waiting, and daydreaming) all the way hip to hip and thigh to thigh. She gave a long humming moan. Tseng was big; not uncomfortably so, but enough that there was some stretch, enough that she was aware of every inch of him, inside her. Elena cried out again, sharper, flexing around him. Tseng made a low noise, a vibrating groan that she swore passed from his body into hers.

He began to move, building up to a slow and steady rhythm. She could feel—she could _feel_ . . . and she couldn't grab his shoulders to anchor herself, or distract herself by touching him or playing with his hair. And it was slow, but not particularly gentle, each thrust hard and deep and quaking her against the mattress. But slow, so that pleasure built at a maddening glacial crawl within her, trickling down her spine.

"Oh god oh god," she chanted, lifting her hips and trying to get more speed, more friction, more _something_. He caught her knee in one hand, lifting it, pulling her very slightly off-balance so she couldn't get the leverage to speed him up. He looked almost insufferably smug, but that was mitigated by his expanded pupils, swallowing black against almost-black, by the sweat breaking out on his skin and the way his hair was coming loose in little strands from his ponytail. (And that was dumb; she should have used the few minutes before he got hold of her hands to get his hair down.)

She tugged at her restraints, and bit her lip, and finally said, "Your hair—please." Tseng didn't pause, but gave her a measuring look and then did as she asked. He braced himself on one forearm and reached back and tugged his hair free. It fell loose around his face. "Ahh, yes," she breathed, and he gave her another smug smile and leaned down so that his hair fell against her cheek and throat and shoulder. Thick black silk, dragging soft and heavy across her skin; she actually whimpered. Her skin felt too tight and too hot. It felt like the beginning of a mission, when adrenaline seared through you with no outlet, and you itched and shook and swore with the need to do something.

"More," she gasped. She tried to make it more a challenge than a plea, but wasn't sure if she'd succeeded. It was hard, oh, hard to challenge, stretched out beneath him and around him.

. . . and anyway, plea or challenge, he didn't comply. "Not yet," he breathed, and if anything he slowed a little. She bit down hard on the inside of her lip to keep from keening in disappointment and frustration. Tseng propped himself up on his forearms without breaking the slow deep cadence of his body in hers. He studied her face, as though she was fascinating instead of merely sweaty. She writhed. The sensations breaking over her were . . . wonderful: she quivered and arched and bit down on helpless noises of pleasure. And he knew what he was doing, oh god, because he had picked the perfect angle, that stroked inside her just _so_ until she felt mad and feverish with it. But it wasn't enough—it was a fraction too slow, enough to drive her crazy, not enough to let her finish.

"Not yet," he murmured again, still studying her, and she made a helpless needy little sound when her eyes met his and she saw them dark with heat, dark and dark and dark and oh _god_ she wanted to touch him, to seize him, to pull him hard against her, and she strained and tugged at the handcuffs. But they were high-quality Shinra-made (her _own damn handcuffs_) and would no way break under her strength.

"You look incredible right before you come," he said. His vice was even but no longer smooth; it had grown distinctly husky (and she felt a jolt that blazed to her slick and trembling cunt that it was _her_ who'd made his voice like that—he who was so famously unaffected by anything). "When you come, too, of course, but that doesn't last long. And you make the most incredible sounds. . . ." He licked just under her ear. She groaned helplessly. "And I think I can keep you right here for a while." His eyes, oh god. ". . . And watch you."

She didn't want it to stop—and yet she did; and her skin crackled as if with static, and she _ached_ in a way that made her thrust against him, even with as little leverage as she had. (It surprised her really not at all that Tseng had so much sheer staying power, or, for that matter, control over himself.) She was storm-wracked, swept by great tides. "See," he said when she growled and tried to pull him deeper with her thighs, "if you weren't tied, I think you would have pulled all my hair out by now."

She heard something, a deep note of satisfaction in his voice, and struggled for air. "You sound like you'd like that," she managed, a little incredulous but mostly breathless.

"Not quite," he said, and his voice was just a little unsteady, too: a tremor. He kissed her, lips and tongue moving softly, softly but thoroughly, touching every inch of her as _he_ was touching every inch of her. She moaned into his mouth. "I just like that you _could._" His lips lingered against hers, so that she could feel them move as he said, "You're incredible."

. . . her heart _hurt_, and the words "I love you," almost came out of her mouth, she was so far gone—her defenses stripped, and she bit down hard on them at the very last moment, and said instead, "You tease, you horrible . . . aaah . . ."

And maybe this was why she resisted this for so long, because he could lay her bare with a glance, because he was the chink in her armor, because she was already so vulnerable to him that tying her up was superfluous. She wondered if he knew.

She could hear herself making high desperate noises, mewling, rattling her restraints, and he finally took pity on her and thrust deep, grinding a little; and then again, fast. She threw back her head and wailed, her thighs trembling, almost there, and he breathed, "Let go, Elena," and his hair fell over his shoulder and tumbled against her skin and she didn't know whether it was the faster pace or his voice or his breath or the touch of his hair but she was coming, ah, finally. And hard. Her whole body stilled as her cunt rippled and throbbed, her legs drawn tight against his, and every cell of her quivered. She felt like she was coming apart, shattering into mirrorbright shards, coruscating, incandescent with it.

"Tseng—" she wailed. He had gone still inside her as she came. He was watching her. He had been watching her through the whole orgasm, she realized, but if she was going to be embarrassed by that, it was going to have to be later, because now her body still tensed in long rippling shudders with the aftershocks.

"Yes," he murmured, very low. He began to move again, and not slow this time, pushing against the trembling that still wracked her. She made a hoarse sound as arousal swelled again, shockingly fast: but it always was easier for her to come the second time.

Dimly, she thought that the handcuffs had been a good idea after all, and she was going to have to tell him so, but later, when she could make words into sentences again.

She wrapped her legs around his hips and rocked against him, as he licked and bit at the juncture of her neck and shoulder, and made another hoarse sound. "You're going to come again," he said against her shoulder. His voice was awed and thick with longing.

"I think so," she panted. "Maybe." He held her hips, pulling her up against him, and bent his head to kiss the upper curve of her breast. "Aaah," she said, "yes, yes." It happened just heartbeats after that. The second time was less intense than the first freefalling orgasm, and this time he didn't stop to watch her, so it was all slick rhythm, pulsing, sweat and her fluids, deep wet throbbing as she came. She made a sound that was wholly undignified, half-sob and half-scream, and he moaned long and deep, kissing under her ear. She buried her face in his hair.

That was it, her body spent, she wasn't going to be able to come again for at least a little while. But he still felt good moving inside her, driving her hard and steady into the bed (but less steady, less and less steady, his rhythm breaking up)—

— and even he had stopped being able to talk, was reduced to semi-articulate moans and growling. He caught her shoulders so he could pull deeper into her, his sweat and her sweat mingling. Seeing Tseng lose his much-vaunted and ironclad control made her shake, made her as smug as he had just been, as all his leashed strength came finally unleashed. Elena tightened her legs around his hips, urging him on.

He thrust one more time, hard and deep, and then came, her name fierce on his lips. She felt him shudder against her. He buried his face against her shoulder. She normally would have held onto him, but she couldn't, so she nuzzled into his hair and breathed the sharp smell of his shampoo.

He might like to watch her before she came, but she liked the way he looked just after: drowsy pleasure, a little glazed and almost dizzy, the most defenseless she'd ever seen him. Blissed to a point past resolve, the control that had slipped was not quite back yet. He turned his face toward her and kissed her very softly. "Mmm," he said.

"Mmm," she replied. "Yeah?"

Tseng smiled again, again the real smile that made her think, incongruously, that he had really nice teeth. She leaned up and kissed him again, then asked, "Handcuffs? The, uh, the key is on the table."

"Oh . . . ." Tseng found the key and unlocked her. He massaged her wrists, soothing the faint red marks. Then he pressed a kiss to the palm of her hand that made her heart flutter—as affecting in its own way as the sex that had preceded it. "Do you think I could talk you into that again?" he asked. She could tell that he was beginning to regain equilibrium, because his voice had regained its even tone, although it was still rough.

"I think you probably could," she said, and couldn't stop herself from grinning at him. "If you ask nicely. But . . . ."

He arched an eyebrow.

Before she lost her daring, she caught the handcuffs and closed one around his right wrist. "My turn next time."


End file.
